Miscellaneous Exchanges

This thread will take the form, sometimes utilised by Nietzsche, of brief exchanges between various people or concepts. I do not dare presume, of course, to match Nietzsche in terms of insight and formulation, but the form will allow me to touch upon a wide variety of subjects, albeit briefly. It's an experiment, time will tell whether it succeeds or fails. Visitors are welcome to submit their own examples, on any subject they like, but all submissions will be subject to my veto.

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In Praise of Life.

Given the rather morose nature of the subject matter on this blog, thus far, I would be remiss and dishonest if I neglected entirely those aspects of existence which bring joy, comfort and strength. I will try, in future, to add some meaningful content here, but for now i'll rest content with merely registering the intention.

The juxtaposition between joy and suffering also raises interesting questions regarding the interaction between these two states, the way that each can, by its own light and shade, alter the experience and interpretation of the other. Anyway, love, beauty, laughter, kindness, friendship, loyalty, tenderness, generosity of spirit, moral courage, and delight are just as real as their opposites, and certainly more valuable and admirable (in a personal, non-Heraclitian sense). This has nothing to do with "balance" in any petty (i.e. neutral) sense, since neutrality is never really an option for any living thing.

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Between Birds of Prey

Staring,
chewing
one who no longer stands upright.
You seem to me grown together with your grave . . .

And only recently so proud
On stilts with all your pride
So recently the hermit without God
Who opened his house to the devil . . .

Now
wedged
between two nothings
a question mark
a tired puzzle
a puzzle for birds of prey. . .

They will "solve" you soon enough
Already they long for your "solution"
They are already flying around you, they're puzzling
Over you, hanged man . . .

Oh Zarathustra! . . .
Who knows himself! . . .
Who has hanged himself! . . .
(Nietzsche).

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Nietzsche's dilemma.

In a letter to Gast (1880), Nietzsche wrote: ". . .To this day, my whole philosophy totters after an hour's sympathetic conversation with total strangers: it seems so foolish to me to wish to be right at the price of love, and not be able to communicate what one considers most valuable lest one destroy the sympathy. Hence my tears."

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Shakespeare's "Existential" Titus Andronicus.

Titus Andronicus is often cited as perhaps Shakespeare's weakest tragedy. Yet regardless of its place in the canon, perhaps no other single piece of writing has meant more to me in recent years. This affinity with certain themes in the text results largely from the most painful of personal experiences. These abysses are here given a voice (of sorts). 

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The Loneliest Loneliness in Nietzsche

This is an early and unpublished Nietzsche text:

"No one talks to me other than myself, and my voice comes to me as the voice of a dying man. With you, beloved voice, with you, the last vaporous remembrance of all human happiness, let me tarry an hour longer. With your help I shall deceive myself about my loneliness; I shall lie my way back into society and love. For my heart refuses to believe that love is dead, cannot bear the terror of the loneliest loneliness. It compels me to talk as though I were two."

These are among the most painful words I have ever read.  Nominally, there is a highly conditional context to these words, but the essence behind them is visible throughout Nietzsche's text. This is a difficult, forbidding and ugly subject, but if one finds oneself drawn to these sentiments and conceptions (as I do), then it can come as no great surprise that this rubicon is approached, if not exactly crossed, far from the gaze of  respectability and solidarity. I will subsequently expand on my thoughts regarding these lines.

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